Rebels Ready For Noriega Election

April 2, 1989|By ROBERT COLLIER, Special to the Sun-Sentinel

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica -- Small rag-tag groups of guerrillas based in Costa Rica are preparing to resume armed activity within Panama, expecting that the Panamanian national elections in May will be stolen by military chief Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, the groups` leaders say.

``We are preparing to go in, because the fraud has already begun,`` said Franklin Molina, who commands about 100 guerrillas. Most of Molina`s men, like Molina himself and the apparent majority of the other guerrilla groups, are Nicaraguans, and many fought with the Contra army.

None of the groups has engaged in combat inside Panama since December, and their ability to create sustained military resistance to the well-armed Panamanian military appears doubtful.

The decision to move back into Panama appears related to a recent crackdown on anti-Noriega guerrilla activity by the Costa Rican security forces. Two major busts in January and February of guerrilla arms caches netted dozens of AK-47 and M-16 automatic rifles, as well as several RPG-7 bazookas and one mortar.

One Nicaraguan, two Panamanians, and two Costa Ricans were arrested after the busts, and are awaiting trial on arms-possession charges.

The crackdown, diplomats say, was prompted by Panamanian government complaints about the guerrilla-organizing activity and by several cross-border armed clashes late last year -- two attacks by the guerrillas against Panamanian military positions, and the bombing, by Panamanian soldiers crossing into Costa Rica, of a coffee-roasting factory owned by Jose Manuel Echevers.

Echevers, a prominent Panamanian dissident, is among the five suspects in prison in San Jose.

The guerrilla groups appear loosely organized, under-financed, and badly divided among themselves. In February, squabbling broke out in the pages of San Jose newspapers between Molina and Jaime Formone, a self-described demolitions and sabotage expert who commands 10 Nicaraguan ex-Contras in an ``urban warfare`` unit.

Many of the claims by the two leaders could not be independently verified. For instance, Molina said that in late December he and 100 men attacked military positions in the Panamanian border province of Chiriqui, killing eight and losing two. He also claimed that in a November attack in the same area his forces lost 15 men while killing 12 Panamanian troops.

In San Jose, an informed source with direct access to Panamanian military intelligence denied that the December attack had occurred but confirmed the November attack, saying six rebels and no Panamanian soldiers died.

Molina and Formone said that the arms captured in January and February belonged to other independent groups, financed -- like themselves -- mostly by wealthy Panamanian exiles in Miami. Both said that their strategy is to initiate armed attacks on the Panamanian military if Noriega rigs the May 7 elections, as most Panamanian opposition leaders expect.